Life is unpredictable — It doesn’t’ always turn out as expected — You believe you knew how life was supposed to go, you had it planned out and then life went differently for you.
Many times when life unexpected occurs it takes a very long time to come to terms and even recover from such.
We are all set in our expectation of how life is supposed to go and when the unexpected occurs because we are creatures of habit, it is indeed difficult.
Making a plan is great, however, being able to adjust when unexpected or unwished for events occur helps.
Love doesn’t always last an eternity — I get it, we read our novels and our romantic books, we hope that life will always end beautifully with the person we love whisking us into eternal bliss. Though promises are made, sometimes they are not kept and so the promise to love forever may not always happen. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who will love you for the rest of your life, but finding those who do and cherishing them, makes life all the more meaningful.
The people who you love and loves you may hurt you — Love sometime hurt. If you don’t love someone it will not hurt you. It’s only those we love who can truly hurt us. A key part of loving is learning to forgive even when you hurt. For love to endure, you will have to forgive over and over.
You can grow apart — that exist . Relationships are not automatic. It needs effort, time, and involvement. To be in a relationship and expect it to automatically have two people who continue harmoniously through life is unrealistic. You can grow apart. Even though you are two separate individuals it is important to have collective relationship goals and spend time with each other. Understanding and respecting each other goals when different from that of another is necessary for relationship enduring.
Love is a principled action not a feeling — Love isn’t a feeling but a principled action. Waiting to feel love for your partner may result in you never doing anything and or doing on occasion when it feels right. Feelings come and go and treating the person you love with a principled approach will allow you to operate consistently even when you don’t feel the feelings of love towards them.
The right partner doesn’t mean absence of conflict — Conflict is inevitable and though your partner and you are soul mates, you will experience conflict from time to time. How you deal with it will make all the difference. Trying to avoid conflict will cause resentment and unhappiness to brew internally leading to an unanticipated eruption of emotions eventually.
Communication is a key survivor of a relationship — If all that is done in a relationship is communicate, then more than half of the problems are solved. Communication is the key to hold any relationship together. Without communication the relationship will dissolve very quickly.
Quality time is not just a fad, but a necessity for a relationship — Many times when dating we make time for that partner. However, as soon as there is a long term commitment the necessity of this is viewed sometimes as not a priority. Scheduling time for going out or doing some fun activity, helps a relationship not just survive but thrive.
Trust broken takes time to return — No matter how much you love that person, when trust is broken, it will not automatically return. It is easy to build trust in the beginning but hard to restore when broken. It can be restored but it takes a much longer time and requires commitment on both partner that they wish to restore the trust.
Children wouldn’t automatically make a marriage better — Many times when a relationship is faltering, there is the belief that having children will make the marriage better. On the contrary, children can cause an already stressed relationship to completely collapse as children compete for all the attention of the adults leaving little time for your partner or self.
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Understanding these challenges that face a relationship and working through these can help a relationship to go through the stormy periods and emerge stronger than before or alternatively if lessons not learnt it can lead to the relationship ending.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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 Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box |
 The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer |
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Photo credit: Jackson Simmer on Unsplash
